an undue share of the mother in them and the dough did not rise; two out of the four are bigots like her, and what is worse their bigotries are antagonistic, for one is always running after priests' skirts, while the other is a Huguenot. I cannot think how I came to hatch out such a couple of ducks. My third son is a soldier, and has to fight, when he is not loafing about, God knows where! and the fourth is just a nonentity; a little sheepish, insignificant shopkeeper—it makes me yawn to think of him, but when the whole of us are seated round the table, each with a fork in his fist, then I feel indeed that we are all of one breed, all of one mind; and well worth looking at, our jaws going like clockwork, bread and wine disappearing down the trapdoor.
You have heard of the furniture, now let us talk of the house itself, which is like another daughter to me, for I built it with my own hands bit by bit, and some parts over and over again, on the banks of the Beuvron, which flows along slowly smooth and green, full of grass, mud and slime, just where the suburbs begin on the other side of the bridge which is like a crouching hound with the water licking below. Directly in front the tower of St. Martin rises light and proud, its edges like an embroidered skirt. They tell us the steps lead-
